Suitable beginner introduction, after that you're on your own

I read this book and Professional Java Native Interfaces with SWT/JFace (Programmer to Programmer) at the same time. In most ways they are very similar, and most of my comments in the reviews I wrote for both are true for both books. Both give a reasonable introduction to SWT and JFace, but neither goes beyond that level. Getting an introduction from a single source that tries to organize the topic gave me a better starting point than assembling the many beginner tutorials that are available free on the Web.

None of the books I have found go beyond a beginner level. By reading two books in parallel I got a better picture of the JFace event model than from either book alone. I had to learn by experiment how to use the event model and communicate data when you go beyond the tiny tutorials in the books.

The sample project of this book is its weakest part. It strings together samples of the major widget classes, but gives no examples of the architecture or dynamics of a real program.

I am not aware of any good resources beyond the beginner level. In my opinion both this and Professional Java Native Interfaces with SWT/JFace (Programmer to Programmer) are superior to the third easy-to-find book on JFace, The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFACE.

Other Reviews

• Suitable beginner introduction, after that you're on your own
• Poor reference
• poorly strucured and organized
• Great fundamentals on JFace frameworks
• A worthy addition to my bookcase.